(Warning: probably not office appropriate. If you work with people who feel uncomfortable using the word “house” instead of “residence”, they really don’t want to hear the translation for “individual who assimilates the male member into the buccal cavity”.)

You might not share Carlin’s relish for rolling Anglo-Saxonisms around his tongue, but you can’t deny the power of his words. Words that just lose a little something in translation.

So for punchier business writing, make like George and excise the excreta from your vocabulary.

Or, as those of us who like to speak English would say it: cut the crap.

As a French learner of English, I’m not always at ease with the call for less latin* words in English sentences*. Emotional* attachment*, I guess. I don’t support* using* obscure* words in business writing (fondly called “copy*” on this web-site*), but let’s not forget that:

1. There are quite** a few latin* words in common*—not really* literate*—use*. You supplied* a good example* with “The deal involved* two people”, which you billed** as an Anglo-Saxon rewrite.

2. The problem* with bad business-speak is not so much the choice* of latin* words, but the choice* of arcane* words that the writer doesn’t understand well, or that mean nothing in the context*. Most of those words happen to be latin* (for the reasons* you highlighted in your article*), but banning*** latin* words is the wrong way* to look at this problem*.

Now if you’ll excuse* me, I have to go learn some German*.

* Latin words. I may have missed some of them.
** “quite” from latin “quietus”, “billed” from middle latin “bulla”, etc.
*** This one is tricky. I found a german origin for the English verb, and a latin origin for the French equivalent. Damn you, proto-Indo-European roots!

fvsch: I agree that it would be impossible to cut all Latinate words from English – otherwise, we’d still be speaking the language of Beowulf. Indeed, I’m not sure I ever said we should ban them. Rather, my point is that if there’s a good Anglo-Saxon alternative, then you should plump for that.

Your comment does raise a point that I do worry about, however – namely that those speaking Romance languages (French, Italian and Spanish) probably find it easier to recognise “transaction” than “deal”, making the latter a less inclusive choice (though few would guess what a fluid transfer solution is). Perhaps as economic power shifts east that will become less of a problem for me.

Finally, to pick me up on “involve” in the example of the deal is to completely ignore the abomination (how’s that for a nice Latin word?) that is “bilateral basis”. A case of declining to visualise the ligeneous area for the arboreal forms it encompasses, methinks.

Regarding “involve”, I was just saying that it’s not an Anglo-Saxon alternative. But it is a good alternative to that “bilateral basis” abomination. My point is: better to insist on everyday, straightforward words than on germanic/latinate/whatever words.

Also, I think it would be a good idea to focus on the roots of the issue. Fancy words (latinate or not) are symptoms. The cause is, I think, a lack of confidence. For instance, if we have to promote a product that is decent but not exceptional (Germanic alternatives: awesome, groundbreaking…), we’re in a tight spot. Our confidence in the product doesn’t match the client’s expectations, or our own expectations if we’re promoting our own products or services. And we have two ways to bridge this gap (plus one):

In a perfect world there would only be good products and services to promote. In the real world we may have to lie to some extent, but we should stop watering down what we say. (We may find out that a down-to-earth small lie works better than a heavily diluted exaggeration.)

You’ve hit the nail on the head with the confidence thing – a point I’ve made before and will make again in my next post on legalese. It’s why pompous Latinisms are so rife in the corporate world, where power relationships are all.

But I still disagree that it’s not useful to consider the origins of words – precisely because of this confidence issue. I recently ran a course on clear English training for a group of corp comms bods, where I showed them the difference between Anglo-Saxon and Latin words. It gave them a way to articulate why certain sentences just sounded wrong. This was really useful for them because it gave them ammunition when making their case for clear English with the verbose executives they dealt with every day.

Besides, when else do I get to use a phrase like “individual who assimilates the male member into the buccal cavity”?

Great post, Clare. I agree with fvsch about a stuffy style masking a lack of confidence. But I think it’s also from a lack of confidence in ourselves. It takes courage to write in a plain, simple way because people are afraid of being thought of as plain and simple.